When North Queensland coach Paul Green won the Brisbane version of the Rothmans Medal as a 19-year-old in 1993, he already had his pilot's licence but the then-Easts Tigers halfback was missing something else.

"Craig Greenhill had shaved both his eye-brows the night before so his mother had to paint eye-brows on him to go to the Rothmans Medal," recalled NRL head of strategy Shane Richardson, who had enticed Green from Wynnum to Easts that season and bought him to Cronulla in 1994 to play under John Lang.

In his second season at the Sharks Green won another Rothmans Medal as player of the year in the Australian Rugby League competition but Lang was surprised when he decided to follow him into coaching.

"It is such a fickle sort of a business so  I thought he might try to follow that flying thing or go back to uni or something like that but once he decided to dedicate himself to coaching I am not surprised he has done so well," Lang said.

"He was smart at at school and he was smart football-wise too. He always had a good feel for the game and a good eye. I remember we had a play we used at the Sharks from a scrum that Greeny had seen Canberra do so we adopted it and we did the right thing by calling it 'Raiders'. David Peachey scored a great try in a semi-final against the Broncos in 1996 off that play."

Green played five seasons at Cronulla before stints with the Cowboys, Sydney Roosters, Parramatta and Brisbane, where he was coached by the man he will go head to head with in Sunday's grand final at ANZ Stadium.

After retiring in 2004, Green worked on the Broncos coaching staff as specialist coach before being promoted the assistant coach in 2009 when Ivan Henjak took charge after Bennett left to join St George Illawarra.

"I played with him at the Broncos and then he was doing our kick-catch stuff, he was really smart back then and he was certainly very intelligent as a football brain," former Cowboys Test centre Brent Tate said.

"People ask me what his greatest attribute is and I say his intelligence. He is a very smart man, he is a strong personality but he is a really good coach and it is no surprise our boys are playing in a grand final under Greeny. I have been saying ever since he was appointed that our club would have success under Greeny.

"He has done development work before [at the Broncos] and he has got his own business so all those things have well equipped him to be a good coach."

Many believe the three years Green spent with Wynnum-Manly, firstly as assistant coach and then in charge of the Seagulls 2011 and 2012 Queensland Cup premiership winning teams has put him in good stead for coaching the Cowboys.

After being appointed to his first NRL job last year, Green surrounded himself with an experienced coaching staff that includes former Canberra mentor David Furner and former Gold Coast coach John Cartwright.

"The guys that he has put around him are career coaches, he has backed himself to be able to be successful and to be able to manage those guys, who are very experienced coaches," Tate said. "It is a sign of what a strong personality he is and the confidence he has in himself."

Green has previously been involved in an NRL grand final as an assistant to Trent Robinson at Sydney Roosters in 2013, when he also coached the club's Under 20s team.

"He was a smart young kid who has had his pilot's licence since he was 19 and he comes from a real football family," Richardson said. "His dad was the president of Wynnum and then his brother went on to become president of the club, his uncle was the captain of the club and he coached the club to two premierships so he is a great rugby league story."